Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1877 — Who Discovered the Cireuliation of the Blood? [ARTICLE]

Who Discovered the Cireuliation of the Blood?

Strictly speaking, it washed dne brilliant Stroke fti gem ua pr good fortune; bat srlong series of investigations by different hands, Which respited V a tnte understanding of the circulation of thd blood. And as with most epoch-making achievements in Science, so with this: while no' one experimenter or thinker can certainly be credited with the first clear perception of tne new trutn, fame has j£hcT perhaps justly, the laurels ta.thn,g»a* who . was able to compel its acceptance by an . unwilling world. v.* -,rr For jtwnqenturies that credit has been given to Harvey, for his masterly dempnstration of the mechanism of the Veins' and arteries, and hin not lore masterly advocacy of the new doctrine. It is not as Clear, ho weaker, that Ho w&s absolute] v the first to. detect and. describe the trueibfflce and character of the circulatory system. It is certain' that the nature of the pulmonary circulation was understood and mught by Italian and other physicians be- j fore Hartretta studies begknj and more than a hundred years agdiMoreri claimed ' that the honor of discovering and demonstrating,! by experiment ted reasoning, the nature pf the greater or system is oirculation was really due to the Italian physician,and naturalist. Andrea Ctesalpin, commonly called Cesaipinus, Who published his “Exercitatio Anatomica de Cordis et Sanj|uin is ,Mato»LMn that a. monument has been erected to his country manfs honor hr Rome! ted A 1 tab-' 1 let recording the discovery istobeflyeA to,me portals of tKfe University of Fisa, where Ceealpinus laught before hb removed to the neighborhood of the Vati-. ’cdh, as physician to Pope Clement VILL, There Js no prom, however, that Harvey knew anything about, the work eof his predecessor and rival, whose Itook doe* not appear to have received ■ muOfi attention even at, home.. And therein no quea. tion pf the fact that the doctrine was first publicly dlscussed AUd ‘combated as Harvey’s, u» Europe re w«ll p* ia Bugtamfc WitpiaA century of the death of Harvey, it must be remembered, the father of modern physiology*; Hail*, whcAc controversy, and gave, a vwdiqtjn favor pf the English physician. Holding that the true discoverer of aa# ardtfa il he who draws it from, ita sources “ at his own risk pud by m Cesalpinus, on account of a few ytoersr*. [sawiw • experiment* andjbe expounder df>all th# arguments which, iq his turn oaulfijbSj, advanced} bCtorigß the itamofUl glory of jthe -difOprav 01 that dneulatlw of the 1 As Hajljsr was not of, t dper craimaut. There is no reason to stipple his dociiio* oHWr tßati impar-* the wttfld will continue in the belief, ao fgasK An 'ffibwiriimg# liiH rp!*d poiupauies shows an increase in earnpidg9riWn the Ist of January to the 81st of October, 1876, of stf,Bl4,ttßT as compared with the correaponuing portion of the year 1875.